That doesn't make breastfeeding fun.
For me, there was a definite moment during my pregnancy when I really wanted to grab a legal pad and do the ol' Pros vs. Cons list. And, as a first-timer, all I thought of were cons.
My daughter is almost eleven weeks old (where does the time go?!) and I am so glad I decided to breastfeed her. All said, the biggest deciding factor was the World Health Organization's recommendation that all babies be breastfed for eighteen months. The World Health Organization is a credible, trustworthy source of advice. It is important to us that The Girl get the best possible start in life, and if breastfeeding her is the way to do so, we are on board!
But there are still cons, and I don't want to ignore them.
I want to address them.
Then I'll address the pros I could never have seen coming.
I am the only person who can feed my baby.
Yes, we could give her expressed breastmilk in a bottle, but I would still have to express said breastmilk. If The Girl is eating, I'm producing. There are ways around this inconvenience, such as pumping a bottle of milk before bed so your partner can feed the baby in the middle of the night and you can get a little more sleep. My child doesn't drink from a bottle. She probably would if we'd introduced it earlier, but we didn't and that's our 'cross to bear.' (Note the quotations: we didn't introduce a bottle earlier because I wanted to feed my child at the breast. But that's a Pro. I will get to that!)
As a result of our decision not to feed The Girl from bottles, sometimes I feel kind of like a cow. She clusterfeeds almost every day from 5pm to 8pm, eating every hour or so. There are times when she is literally (no, not figuratively) on the breast for two, three hours at a stretch. It can be hard to get things done when you're constantly nursing.
Also because she doesn't eat from a bottle, her sleep schedule is kind of my problem. There is no sense in waking my husband when I feed the baby in the middle of the night, because she's going to go right back to sleep and he needs his rest as much as I do. If The Girl is up at 3am, it's because she's hungry. And I am the only person who can fix that, so I fix it. There was resentment (mostly caused by sleep deprivation) for a few weeks, early on, but some of those Pros are a lot easier to see once the baby starts sleeping for longer than two hours at a time.
Hey, pregnant person trying to decide whether to breastfeed your baby-to-be? You may have heard that breastfeeding hurts. I'm here to tell you that is true. No, it doesn't hurt for everyone. But holy hell did it hurt me. For the first month or so, it was not uncommon to see my eyes fill with tears as I looked away when The Girl latched on, hoping she wouldn't see breastfeeding as a negative time for Mommy. It definitely gets better. Use the nipple cream everyone tells you to use. They're right! It helps! Just don't use straight-up lanolin, because it feels like rubbing half-dried rubber cement onto your sore, cracked nipples. And that isn't so nice.
So, cons: you might feel like a cow, your kid might not like bottles and if she doesn't, the sleep schedule is your problem. And breastfeeding hurts for a while.
This might just be me, but the last con I want to mention is a really interesting kind of embarrassment. You know that feeling when you're embarrassed of yourself? Not because someone saw what you were doing, or because someone called you out or anything. Just.. you feel truly silly, and it sucks, even if nobody ever knows about it? It's the same feeling when you leak onto your sheets if you start your period in the middle of night, because damn it, you're twenty-five years old how do you not know to be prepared for that?! That's how I feel when my boobs leak. And I produce enough milk to feed a preschool, so they leak a lot. I'm here to say: that's dumb. Stop forgetting to wear breastpads to bed, Tara.
Now, those are some serious cons, if you ask me. Those, all alone, are solid and sound reasons not to breastfeed. But, oh the Pros. You guys. The Pros.
YOU are the ONLY ONE who can feed your baby! Don't worry, I'm not about to employ junior-high journalism and turn every con on its ear and wave the "Aha!" wand so it's a pro. But this one? Think about it. You're her only mom. Your body, which built her and nourished her for those 40 weeks is still nourishing her for as long as you nurse. Whether you think this is silly or not, New Mom, you're going to feel like a freakin' wizard when your milk comes in. (So many references to magic. I cannot explain that. Moving on.)
You know in movies, when a new baby is just screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end? You get a break from the noise if you pop your boob in that kid's mouth. No, I'm not saying to equate food with comfort, I'm saying to equate Mama with comfort. That's a message I love to send to my daughter.
No two ways about it: breastmilk is best for babies. I'm sharing my immune system with The Girl until she develops one of her own, and she's exposed to all the same illnesses and allergens as I am. Her father is a medic. She is going to get sick, but I cannot tell you the viruses she would have caught this winter alone if she hadn't been getting antibodies from me. (Actually, no one can. Not even scientists, but I sure bet she would have been sick by now, with everything my husband says is infecting those guys!) There's also the perfect amount of fat, of nutrition, of water in breastmilk for babies as they age. Breast is just best.
My cloth-diapered, breastfed baby is the most portable baby in the world. As far as diapers, I don't need a trashcan, but since she's nursed, I don't need a bottle, formula, running water, or somewhere to put her while I struggle to get her milk mixed at the right temperature or whatever.
Oh, yeah. There's also the way breastmilk is free, and anything you buy that relates to breastfeeding is tax-deductible.
And now we get to the touchy-feely ones:
In the days following my delivery, I felt useless. My body had never been so spent, my mind had never been so overwhelmed, and I was just so tired. I didn't sleep longer than an hour at a time for the first two days after I gave birth, and it was just horrible. To make things worse, I had a lot of trouble walking for the first night of my daughter's life and everyone knows pacing helps babies sleep. I couldn't help her sleep. My hormones were so out of whack and flowing so intensely, if I attempted to sing my brand new perfect little baby to sleep, I would just start sobbing and the melody was lost and it was useless. I felt utterly useless.
But, every 1-3 hours, I was the only person who could soothe that baby. If we'd been formula feeding, I wouldn't have connected with my baby until my husband went back to work almost six weeks after her birth, because she wouldn't have needed anything Anthony couldn't give her. Call me selfish. Call me ridiculous. But the truth is that I only bonded with the little girl who now has my whole heart because I could solve a problem for her that no one else could solve.
There were a few weeks of The Girl's life between my mom leaving and my mother-in-law coming that almost broke me in half. I felt lost, terrified, consumed and alone. No one could have fixed me, or changed how I was experiencing my first few weeks of motherhood, and I was so angry. I felt like I was missing it. It was so frustrating to want to love being a mom, to want to remember my first few weeks with my first baby as a beautiful time full of love and hope and excitement. I worried my memories would be of hearing her scream, of watching her face turn red, of yelling at my husband who I knew, even then, was only trying to help.
But every few hours, I saved the day. And that's what I remember. Because of nursing my baby at 5am, I remember watching the sun rise on her pink little face. From feeding her at 2am, in the dead of night, I remember how warm she was against my chest in the middle of December, and how she snuggled into me and not into the blanket I wrapped around us. Instead of my memory being full of nights I was roused by screaming and sent her father for a bottle, my heart is full of times I made my child feel better when she didn't understand the world and all the empty, lonely space around her.
When they could be of darkness, of screaming, of hopelessness, my memories are of the sun rising and setting with a happy, milk-drunk baby in my arms.
I have nursing to thank for avoiding an intense and life-shattering depression, one I could feel nipping at my heels every single day and every single night, until I lifted my daughter from her bed and helped her in the way only her mommy could. Making my daughter feel better made me feel better.
Once we got used to nursing and figured out the kinks (The Girl still hates the football hold, and wouldn't nurse in any position other than cross-cradle for about six weeks), it was just such a special time for us. There are facial expressions her father never saw because they were only ever used in response to the first few glugs of mama's milk. He never saw the grinchy little smile while she panted, catching her breath for round two. He never saw her eyes open, her tears stop, and her face unscrew when she smelled my skin so close. And he never will. Those things are just for me and my baby.
These eleven weeks have gone by so fast. I'm blown away by their quickness. If you think pregnancy is quick, you're going to be shocked by how soon your baby smiles and starts cooing, and grabbing toys and kicking things you hold within the reach of those chubby little legs.
But my baby won't outgrow needing to eat. It's kind of scary, watching her develop and move past little things like waking up a million times a night just because she has so much space in the world so suddenly. When The Girl started actually using toys, my mind's eye saw her using other things: cups for water or juice, tables to pull up on, shoes for walking. And it hurt my heart. It feels too fast. At the same time, I'm so excited to have a toddler in nine months that are sure to fly by. I'm excited to hear her say Mama, and I'm excited to watch her learn. And I'm really glad that I'll be nursing her through most of it, and that we will have these quiet moments where she's still my teeny little baby... even if she kind of isn't.
I'll close with this photo, and a poem I wrote when The Girl was about five weeks old.
From deep sleep, she calls for me:
the only one who can fulfill her need.
I smooth her fuzzy, dark hair
and bring her heart to mine,
returning her tired gaze
and sharing a sleepy smile.
In these midnight moments,
we are one again.
No comments:
Post a Comment